Fundraising Management: Sponsorship, Philanthropy, and the State
CharleneYY
Diversitylecture1.pptxdiversity & arts funding
Diversity in fundraising
What does diversity mean?
The language of diversity is ubiquitous in many arts funding organizations (and in other public and commercial institutions, such as Universities too).
Diversity can be used as a way of describing an organization, it can also be adjective used as an expression of an organization’s priorities.
Diversity is framed as something to be managed and valued by human resources.
The word diversity is ‘in fashion’ right now, replacing other terms like equality.
Why do you think that the word diversity represents? Why is this term often used in fundraising contexts?
Defining diversity
Phillip Napoli is a Professor in the Stanford School of Cultural Policy. He wrote “Deconstructing the Diversity Principle” in 1999.
In this piece, Napoli discusses the Federal Communication Commission in the US – as they were stressing ‘diversity’ as a policy objective in US communications (in particular TV) .
In the piece, he is trying to work out what ‘diversity’ actually means.
This piece is useful, as ‘diversity’ continues to be a key topic for discussion throughout different strains of policy and practice related to art funding and fundraising.
It helps us to understand what the word diversity means when it is used in policy and funding – although these meanings are complicated contested as we will see throughout this lecture.
The diversity principle
For Napoli, diversity has three key components:
Source diversity
Content diversity
Exposure diversity
Napoli points out that diversity is often framed as central to the “marketplace of ideas” – defined as how people are able to access different thoughts, information and culture to reach broader social objectives.
In America at the time Napoli wrote this piece, diversity was seen to be important for “developing well-informed citizens and enhancing the democratic process” (Napoli, 1999: 9).
Source diversity
Source diversity suggests that good democratic participation means being able to access information (and culture) from a number of different sources.
For Napoli, this relates to media ownership – of both outlets and content owners.
In terms of cultural industries, this may mean cultural institutions (eg theatres, museums) and cultural producers (eg theatre companies, curators).
Research on this type of diversity may mean counting the number of different stakeholders in a market.
This kind of research may also count the market share of each of these actors – not all cultural institutions/initiatives have the same reach, or access to audiences.
Workforce diversity
Workforce diversity often means CCI employees that are representative of the diversity of their market area.
In Napoli’s work, he notes that the US Federal Communications Commission may take away funding and licenses if personnel are not considered to be diverse enough within media industries.
The Arts Council today has– as do many foundations and grant making organizatiotargets for workforce diversity ns.
Napoli notes that it is important to understand what roles that different people are doing? Is there equality among different roles related to diversity?
Arts council 2018/2019 diversity reporting
Demographic diversity
This concerns whether minority groups and other demographic groups are portrayed on television (or in culture such as plays, museum exhibitions, film) in a reasonable proportion to their prevalence in society.
The development of diverse content is often linked to the diversity of people working in the industry.
This draws, and emphasizes, a link between source diversity and content diversity.
But there are other factors that should be taken into account that mean this link is not always straightforward.
Napoli: Concluding points
Many policymakers, including funders such as the Arts Council, are concerned with assessing diversity.
Much research on diversity focuses on describing (or counting up) different forms of diversity.
However, for Napoli, diversity policy must focus on the structural and economic factors that contribute to diversity.
Understanding the wider context in which diversity policy is enacted is also very important for understanding how culture is developed and produced.
Anamik saha
Senior Lecturer in the University of Goldsmiths in Department of Media and Communications.
Research on race, cultural industries and issues of ‘diversity’.
He has written two books ‘Race and the Cultural Industries’ (2017) and ‘Race, Culture and Media (2021).
The politics of race in cultural distribution (2017)
Anamik Saha follows from Napoli in observing that there is an assumption that more ‘diverse’ arts workforce will naturally, or logically, lead to a more ‘diverse’ content being produced
“The assumption underlying industry approaches to diversity is that the reproduction of ‘negative’, ‘stereotypical’ and reductive representations of racial and ethnic minorities will be solved by increasing the numbers of minorities working in the media” (Saha, 2017: 303).
There are factors which ultimately often lead to attempts at diversity being mitigated or diluted – particularly through cultural distribution.
Key issues
Anamik Saha notes that for people of colour working in the arts “their patronage [funding] relies on representing their cultural diversity in an ethnically absolutist way that that arts funders recognise and can associate value with” (Saha, 2017 p.307).
Key issues
This is relevant when we think of how the arts are funded – particularly in the UK.
Diversity must be articulated and produced in a very specific way for funding applications, and for partners (eg commercial sponsorships).
Saha uses Cultural Studies theorist Stuart Hall’s concept of “segregated visibility” to discuss this. Often ‘diversity’ means fewer cultural spaces that are underfunded, policed and regulated.
What does this mean for cultural producers?
For Saha, British Asian theatre has been both enabled and constrained by cultural policy in the UK.
It has been enabled by the Arts Council’s focus on diversity, which has meant more funding for underrepresented groups in the UK.
However, British Asian Theatre is limited in the ways that cultural producers must frame their production in order to secure funding, and by other structural factors in CCI’s.
What does this mean for cultural producers?
In his research, Saha interviewed Asian playwrights, who argued that the landscape of British Asian theatre is rich and diverse (in themes and content).
However, many of the playwrights and producers he spoke to distinguished their own own styles from more populist and commercial styles.
For Saha, the production company Rifco Theatre offers an example of more populist and commercial Asian theatre, which is used as a case study the paper we are looking at today.
Case study: Rifco arts
In his paper, Saha focuses on Rifco Arts – one of the most commercially successful Asian companies in the UK.
They are an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation.
Rifco Arts was founded in 2000 in Slough (South East of the UK).
They develop and produce touring plays and musicals.
Rifco arts say:
“We are committed to diversifying the kind of work seen in our British theatres and we do this by commissioning British Asian playwrights and working with as many diverse actors, designers, directors that we can find. We also provide opportunities for British Asian talent to develop their ideas and careers through our Rifco Associates programme.”
Rifco arts: engaged with communities
Saha points out that Rifco Arts is “committed to a community that has been traditionally excluded from arts in general” – they spent significant income on audience development through outreach in community centers, elderly homes and schools.
They theatre company also solicited feedback after performances through feedback sheets.
Rifco’s Artistic Director Pravesh Kumar, was explicit about its commitment to ‘working-class [Asian] audiences who don’t normally go to the theatre’.
They saw their audience as a ‘new audience’ – an audience whose cultural capital can be developed. In this way, they can be ‘taught’ to be a sustainable theatre audience.
Rifco arts’ success
Rifco are a successful company because their plays were put on for significant periods of time (namely – long ‘runs’) in regional theatres.
This is a key part of obtaining a sustainable income, a key factor in their ongoing success as a theatre company.
In interviews with Saha, many other theatre production companies said they felt that ‘cultural diverse theatre’ were only put on in smaller, regional theatres for very short runs.
One of the key limitations for British Asian Theatre producers is that they felt that bigger, more central venues wouldn’t take a ‘risk’ on culturally ‘diverse’ theatre.
Arts council diversity
Criteria's for commissioning are based on whether a company will meet certain targets or expectations regarding diversity, and how this may entice ‘new’ audiences.
This is also a similar case for many UK artistic venues.
These requirements raises concerns about ‘box ticking’ – a bureaucratic exercise will Asian plays will get programmed because they are Asian, meeting Arts Council criteria.
These venues will have an expectation of what an Asian work should be – prioritizing a clear overdetermination of difference (tending towards more populist or understandable representations of Asian culture).
Audience development
In the focus on attracting ‘new audiences’, there is an implicit assumption that (to take Saha’s example) Asian work is designed for Asian audiences.
The Arts Council (and other grant making organisations) often promotes ‘engaging with’ and encouraging participation from marginalized groups.
This is often called audience development (building relationships, visiting communities, adapting productions, focus on the long term and repeat visits).
Audience development
Critics have suggested that ‘audience development’ can often be superficial or ‘tick box’.
It doubles down on the ‘niche’ themes that meet the expectation of what British Asian work should be.
Expectations of creative work to undertake audience development links back to the shift in cultural policy that requires ‘creative industries’ to contribute value to economy and society.
Saha (2017) Summary points
For Saha, the relationship between the funding and the distribution and marketing of culture is complex.
“Through cultural distribution, culturally diverse arts are recognised and made visible, but positioned in such a way that they cannot disrupt the core – a kind of keeping at arm’s length” (Saha, 2017 p.316).
For Saha, this is complicated as Arts Council funding has led to support for Black and Asian cultural producers, for example Rifco Arts.
Although ‘diverse’ culture is produced, more focus needs to be put on the distribution of culture, rather than simply workforce or content diversity.
diversity and arts funding/ fundraising conclusions
Many arts funders have priorities for increasing diversity in the arts.
It is important to reflect on the word diversity, and how this is being used.
For Sara Ahmed, diversity is used because it is ‘buzzy’ – a word that creates a lot of noise, but is not clear what it means.
Phillip Napoli suggests that we distinguish between how the word diversity is used between source diversity, workforce diversity and exposure diversity.
Animik Saha shows how diversity initiatives prioritize certain forms of commercial arts, in which diversity is recognizable and legible to funders.
